0.7 Chapter five: new initiatives and economic shocks, 1982-1987  (Page 8/18)

At this moment of great crisis, what the Society needed most was strong and focused leadership from its board. The resources available to fulfill the Soci­ety's mission were declining, and the Society simply could not afford to be all things to all people. Difficult resource allocation decisions would have to be made. Mak­ing those decisions, and developing a realistic plan for implementing them, would require the determination and hard work of a board working together.

Unfortunately, just when the Society needed board leadership the most, cir­cumstances made getting that leadership less likely. Instead of action, members of the board focused on trying to determine exactly how bad the situation was and on how the Society had gotten into difficulty. A significant portion of board activity for the duration of Goelet's tenure was directed toward hiring consultants and hearing their reports, adjusting the board committee structure, and changing the Society's by-laws.

Before taking action to tackle the problems at hand, the board turned to con­sultants. The work of George Trescher has already been discussed. In April 1985, the executive committee hired Charles Webb to prepare a report on fundraising. His report sought to establish specific areas of responsibility in fundraising for individuals on the board. For example, one board member was assigned respon­sibility for foundation gifts, another was put in charge of corporate gifts, and a third oversaw social events and benefits.

Shortly after implementing Webb's recommendations, Bell retained the firm of Marts&Lundy to undertake a long-range planning study for the Society with an eye toward a capital campaign. Unfortunately, the study took a year to com­plete. At the April 1986 meeting of the board, Marts&Lundy presented a com­prehensive report that identified ten areas of concern for the Society. The study urged the Society to fill key staff positions, develop policies on collections man­agement, survey and conserve the collections, establish a budget and a schedule for reducing the cataloging backlog, improve the physical facilities, and establish exhibition priorities. These were just the initiatives that required immediate and urgent attention. The report concluded that The New-York Historical Society was not well known and recommended that it consider a capital campaign in the $3 million to $5 million range. The report also identified a series of steps that would have to be taken before launching the campaign: the budget would have to be bal­anced, experienced fundraisers would have to be recruited, a case statement would have to be prepared, and a nucleus fund would have to be solicited. It was unclear how an organization with the Society's deficit history could have even begun to address the recommendations of the report.

Not long after hiring Marts&Lundy, the board heard a report from a con­sulting group from Arthur Andersen&Co., who conducted an investigation of the Society's business operations. Their charge was "to identify the administrative functions carried out by the various departments. . . and [determine] the effec­tiveness of the organization." The report's primary recommendation was that the Society appoint a business manager to oversee financial operations. It also rec­ommended that the Society adopt a new organization structure and hire a deputy director. The board ultimately chose not to change the structure or establish the deputy director position, but it did hire an associate director for administration and a comptroller. The Marts&Lundy study also determined, through interviews with staff members, that the Society did little long-range planning or annual goal setting, had a serious cataloging backlog in both the museum and the library, and was not maximizing its potential to generate income from its museum store, rental of its facilities for events, and sales of photographic reproductions. It is likely that the board was already aware of these shortcomings. Clearly, the list of problems was growing at the very time that the financial resources to deal with them were dwindling.